BOTTLE CHARTS, maps of the ter minal points of the voyages of sealed bottles thrown into the sea and either drifting to land or picked up afloat. These bottles had long been used by the victims of shipwreck to convey messages or record their fate, or by travelers or seamen for joke or experi ment; but the first serious note taken of them was by Lieutenant Beecher of the British navy, who in 1843 published in the Nautical Magazine a Mercator chart of the Atlantic coast from lat. 6° S. to 63° N., or say from Cape Saint Roque, in Brazil, to Hudson Strait, with straight lines from start to finish of a number of bottle voyages he had noted, the length of these lines, time elapsed since set afloat, etc. Of course some bottles leak and founder and others are crushed; but he was able to collect 119 bottles, one of which had traveled 3,900 miles in a straight line, and of course far more in fact, and four over 2,000, while the time of voyage varied from three days to 16 years. This chart has been repeatedly freshened up with new facts, re engraved and republished in the Nautical Magazine. Later, several government depart ments, of which the United States Hydro graphic Office is by far the chief, have used this method systematically for the study of ocean currents. The office furnishes shipmasters with papers for inclusion in bottles, contain ing requests in several different languages for their delivery, with date and circumstances of finding, to the nearest United States consul, who will forward them to Washington. By this means three or four hundred new bottle voyages have been registered, with curious results. In general, their track is remarkably
uniform, given the same local conditions. Of two bottles thrown out from the Blonde with in five days in 1826 (one of Beecher's list), one was picked up 14 and the other 16 years after at the same spot on the French coast. Yet the effect of local winds is so great that of two set afloat simultaneously at the same spot, one was picked up on the Shetlands, the other on the west coast of France. Just north of the Azores, the surface conditions are so variable that of five bottles thrown out in one summer within 100 square miles, one drifted to the coast of Norway, two to the west coast of Ireland, one to France and one to Spain. The longest recorded voyage was about 8,500 miles, from the Allertons, south of the Falk land Islands, to the shore of the great Aus tralian Bight, in a little less than three years. See CHART; MAP.
a medium-sized Aus tralian tree (Sterculia rupestris) of the fam ily Sterculiacece. From the top of the globu lar stem, as from the mouth of a bottle, the branches extend. They bear lanceolate leaves two to four inches long and axillary panicles of inconspicuous flowers followid by leathery six-seeded follicles. The soft brittle wood is of little economic value, but the stems are said to contain much water, which is fre quently obtained by the natives and by trav elers. Some other allied species, also called bottle-tree, furnish edible mucilaginous roots which are largely used by the aborigines.